Isle of Man's Billy Harris talks Wimbledon, returning to Manx shores and inspiring the next generation

Tindle News

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00:00So, Billy, back on the Isle of Man after a successful Wimbledon, would you say?

00:04Yeah, great to be back, especially when the weather's like this.

00:07It's nice to come back and see everyone.

00:10Wimbledon was good.

00:12Made it to the second round in the singles and doubles this year,

00:15which was one step further than last year.

00:19So, take the positives from that and hopefully go again better next year.

00:24Absolutely, and I feel like the tennis you played this year

00:28was a big difference from last year to a lot of improvement.

00:30How much work has gone into that?

00:32Yeah, I mean, all year round since last year I've been playing tournaments week in, week out.

00:38So, trying to make small improvements along the way.

00:41And, yeah, it's paying off, slowly but surely.

00:44And what's the difference between playing in the tournaments you're playing around the rest of the year

00:48and then playing at Wimbledon? Is there a striking difference?

00:51Yeah, I mean, it's definitely more special.

00:52You're at home, you've got your friends, family,

00:55and the English sport and a lot of Isle of Man support over there as well.

01:02So, it's great to see so many Isle of Man faces around Wimbledon.

01:06And, yeah, it's just a different atmosphere on the grass.

01:10And, yeah, it's great to play there.

01:13And the doubles as well, you did well on them as well.

01:16What was that like playing in the doubles?

01:17And is that something you're looking to do more in the future?

01:19Yeah, I'm definitely trying to play more doubles.

01:22But the tournaments that I play, it's tough to get into the doubles sometimes.

01:26So, it's hard to keep the ranking up because you've got a lot of doubles specialists.

01:31But, yeah, me and Marcus Willis had one good win in the first round.

01:37And then we had a good match against the guys that won it last year.

01:41So, it was a tough draw.

01:42But, yeah, I thought we played well.

01:44As you can imagine, a lot of Manxies were watching back home.

01:47And none more so than people at Albany Tennis Club.

01:49I've seen you were there with the kids the other day.

01:51Yeah, I've been up there a few times.

01:53It's great to see so many kids still keen and practising.

01:58Sign a few tennis balls.

02:00And, yeah, it's good to see that people are following it

02:03and hopefully inspiring a few kids to keep playing and trying to play across more.

02:10Absolutely.

02:10And you've played at Castletown, you've played at Albany.

02:13You're going back to these places.

02:14How weird is it for you to be feeling like you're the, like, inspiring the next generation?

02:18Is that something you, there's a lot of pressure on you?

02:21No, it's not pressure.

02:22It's just, it's good to come back and see all the kids that, you know,

02:28they're buzzing to play and hit with quite a few of them in little tie breaks.

02:34And Castletown yesterday went down there and they kindly gave me membership

02:40for life at Castletown Tennis Club.

02:42Neil Ronan and the committee down there.

02:46So I went down there and played with all the kids

02:50and there's some really good juniors coming through.

02:52You must remember being a junior back then.

02:54How much of an impact did these clubs have on your career?

02:56Yeah, massively.

02:57I mean, it's, they're easily accessible.

03:02There's a lot of kids at all the clubs now.

03:06So we do need a few more coaches hopefully coming through to help out with the numbers.

03:12But yeah, there's a lot of keen players and some of them are going away to compete.

03:17So hopefully they can follow in, follow in my footsteps.

03:20Absolutely.

03:21And just finally with the Island Games coming up,

03:23you played in a lot of Island Games over the years.

03:26You played a lot of tennis.

03:27What was the experience like in that?

03:28And has that shaped your career a lot as well?

03:30Yeah, great, great atmosphere at the Island Games.

03:33It always is.

03:34I think the tennis was actually played here for the Island Games this year

03:38because Orkney didn't have the set-up.

03:41Charlotte Clark won that, I believe.

03:44And yeah, always great events

03:48and good luck to all the Manx athletes that are going out to Orkney next week, isn't it?

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